NORTHWOOD — Inflation and supply chain issues may be changing the city’s proposed $6.3 million recreation center, but plans continue for a late fall groundbreaking.

“$6.3 million is the price we are going to present to city council, to ask them to bond,” Bob Anderson, Northwood administrator, said. “We did get $1 million from the state. We got that a couple years ago, and then because of COVID and supply issues, the state has said that deadline is extended until July of 2024, but we hope to have the building up by next year.”

City consultant Glen Grisdale, Reveille consulting, is hoping construction will begin this fall, but inflation has started impacting plans.

“The math of the economy started to hit us with some impediments,” Grisdale said. “Challenges with commodities, liquidity of certain commodities, labor shortages, material shortages and cost escalations, so we weren’t able to afford the aquatic center and we started to frame that in with proposal number two, with a splash park.”

Anderson said they want get a “good value for their money.”

M&A Architects, the consultants for the facility, presented the city with two options: one with all the desired features and another more basic facility.

Their numbers showed what would originally have been a 35,000-square-foot facility revised down to 25,000 square feet.

Northwood Council approved a contract in May with the Lathrop construction company to put together a design for the proposed facility with a guaranteed maximum price of $6.3 million.

If the $6.3 million is no longer possible, the council could shelve the project in September and lose the $1 million from the state.

The new recreation center would be on the south side of the new Enclave Main Street that extends off the entrance on Woodville Road, with a large parking lot almost abutting Williston Road.

It would include a walking track, fitness gym and rental rooms for business meetings and receptions.

A 2017 Northwood parks and recreation survey showed that 85% of respondents would visit a community center daily or weekly.

It also showed that 60% of respondents indicated a willingness to support it with a recreation levy, which Grisdale interpreted as major support for the project.

“A recreation levy would have been directed right at the community center. We are working on ways now that we can afford the recreation center without having to ask for increased taxes,” Anderson said.

“We have decent reserves, but in the beginning we are going to have to borrow money to put this structure up. We hope to offset at least the operations by the fees, rental fees and other fees we can get from the building,” Anderson said. “We are in a relatively good place, so I hope we can do this without any increase in taxes.”

Northwood does not have a parks levy and both the administration and council want to keep it that way using several methods, starting with the location. The Enclave is in a tax increment financing zone, or TIF.

“I think for a project like this, it’s not just to benefit the recreation, but the TIF is set up to allow us to put in the infrastructure that we hope will attract commercial businesses. The money will then be redirected to pay what we borrowed back,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of a win-win for them. They’ve got the infrastructure there when they build the buildings and we found a way to build that infrastructure.”

A TIF has been used by several communities in Wood County for projects like the Crossroads in Rossford and the intermodal shipping area in the North Baltimore area, Anderson said.

The new recreation facility would be open to Northwood residents and non-residents.

It would also have a park, for green space, directly to the east. To the east and west, along Main Street would be townhouses. Across the street would be three floors of dual-use buildings, with first-floor businesses and apartments located above.

The Enclave is located on the site of the former Woodville Mall.

Anderson said horizontal infrastructure is already in place. That’s water, sewer, drainage, basic utilities and some of the roads. The first vertical construction has started with $32 million residential project of 114 villas.